s that
the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the measure of the
efforts which an enemy is likely to make for its suppression. But it is
not directly the measure of the efforts which a nation so assailed must
make for its defence. The measure of these efforts is determined not by
the volume and value of the trade to be protected but by the amount and
character of the naval force which the enemy can employ in assailing it.
In the Boer War British maritime commerce was unassailed and
uninterrupted in all parts of the world, and yet not a single ship of
the British Navy was directly employed in its protection. If on the
other hand England were at war with a naval Power of the first rank, she
might have to employ the whole of her naval resources in securing the
free transit of her maritime commerce. So long as she can do this with
success she need give no thought to the menace of possible invasion. A
command of the sea so far established as to secure freedom of transit
for the vast and ubiquitous maritime commerce of this country is also,
of necessity, so far established as to deny free transit to the
transports of an enemy seeking to invade. The greater includes the less.

It may at first sight seem to be an anomaly--some, indeed, would
represent it as a mere survival of barbarism--that whereas in war on
land the private property of an enemy's subjects is, by the established
law and custom of civilized nations, not liable to capture or
destruction without compensation to its owners, the opposite rule still
prevails in war at sea. But a little consideration will, I think, show
that the analogy sought to be established between the two cases is a
very imperfect one. War on land does _ipso facto_ suspend in large
measure the free transport of commerce in transit. As between the two
belligerents it interrupts it altogether. Moreover, throughout the
territory occupied by the enemy, the railways, and in large measure the
roads, are practically monopolized for the movements of his troops and
the transport of his supplies--in a word for the maintenance of his
communications. There can have been little or no consignment of goods
from Paris to Berlin or _vice versa_ during the war of 1870, and even
though at certain stages of the war goods might have been consigned,
say, from Lyons to Geneva, or from Lille to Brussels, yet such cases are
really only the counterparts of the frequent failure of one
belligerent's cruisers